When sorrow binds us all together

Karachi
It was indeed a touching moment with people of different faiths coming together as one family to mourn the Safoora Goth carnage that claimed the lives of 46 people of a community which apart from being a very peace-loving lot, has also made massive contributions to the development and progress of Pakistan.
It was moving to see how despite our different religious orientation, we are ultimately one as in times of tribulation we turn to the same ultimate source, The Almighty, the one and only infinitely supreme being in this infinite universe.
This was amply demonstrated at the inter-faith memorial service for the victims of the carnage at the St Patrick’s cathedral on Friday evening, where religious and political leaders of all hues prayed for the departed and their kin and condemned the terrorists in the most unequivocal of terms.
The service started with the singing of Psalm 20 by the choir. This was followed by a scripture reading, the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 3, verses 1-9.
Father Arthur Charles said a prayer beseeching The Almighty to grant repose to the souls of the departed in paradise and to grant succour to their next-of-kin. He said that even though these deaths were a loss for all of us, especially the dear ones, yet we must derive comfort from the fact that they were in the nearness and the presence of God.
Haleem Adil Sheikh, provincial president of the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid, said that terrorists were not enemies of any particular sect or religion but were the enemies of humanity. In this context, he cited the attacks on mosques, imambargahs, and churches and said that the government should not rest content till the very last one of them was eliminated.
Maulana Ehsan Siddiqui demanded of the government to tightly clamp on all those who were determined to keep Karachi and Pakistan embroiled in terror. He prayed that God may duly punish all those who were involved in this dastardly attack.
Archbishop Joseph Coutts, Archbishop of the Karachi Archdiocese, said that this was an attack on Pakistan. He said walls were being raised between people, “but we’re here to demolish those walls and bring people together as we all are the children of the same God”.
Recalling the Quaid’s motto, “Unity, Faith, Discipline”, he said that unity was the need of the hour to fight off the forces of terror and savagery.
Noted philanthropist and social worker Ansar Burney said, “In Pakistan, only Pakistanis live. There are no Muslims, no Christians, and no Hindus; we’re all Pakistanis.”
Without naming the enemy, he said, “Our enemy never reconciled to our existence and does not even spare our children. We shall have to stave off this curse as one, as Pakistanis,” Burney asserted most emotionally.
“In Pakistan, whatever our religion, we are all united in this tragedy,” said Mehnaz Rehman of Aurat Foundation.
The Ismailis, she said, were such a peace-loving community and one really was at a loss to fathom as to why someone should have been so violently against them.
Besides, she said, those who perpetrated this tragedy seemed to forget that it was the present Aga Khan’s grandfather, Sir Shah Muhammad Aga Khan III, who was the president of the All-India Muslim League and crusaded tirelessly for the creation of Pakistan.
“We must ensure the implementation of the Quaid-e-Azam’s speech to Pakistan’s first legislative assembly on August 11, 1947, which most unambiguously spelt out the total equality of people of all religions inhabiting the country and their equal rights,” she said.
Guru Sri Babu Lal Chohan from the Hindu community strongly condemned the carnage and later said a prayer in Hindi/Sanskrit for the prosperity and well-being of Pakistan.
Father Saleh Diego said that we had to get the message across that regardless of community, we were all one and we were all Pakistanis, a fact that was so clearly demonstrated in the inter-faith service.
He also prayed for the terrorists to the effect that God may bring them to the right path and make them repent for their beastly deeds; that God may show them the light and transform them into sublime human beings. At the end, the choir presented a national song.
The Sikh representative, Sardar Ramesh Singh, who was also scheduled to speak could not turn up for unspecified reasons.

HRCP slams bus massacre
The barbaric killing of members of the Ismaili community in a bus attack in Karachi is highly condemnable, but it deserves more than mere words of censure and sympathy from the authorities, the political parties and the civil society, said the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
In a statement, the commission said: “It is tragic beyond words that once again bands of killers have massacred Pakistan’s daughters and sons, this time from the Ismaili community, and walked away without any apparent difficulty.
“Words of solace, especially from those in authority, sound hollow today because the state has once again failed to ensure the citizens’ right to life, from which all other rights sprout. Anyone claiming that they understand the families’ pain does not, unless they are the unfortunate families of victims of the Peshawar army school attack or countless other callous killings by terrorists.
“To the authorities falls the task of explaining how such an attack was possible without the numerous security and intelligence agencies knowing anything about it or preventing it. They should also say how the National Action Plan or any other mechanism should have and could, in the future, prevent such callous mowing down of people going about their lives.
“They must explain why measures taken to check terrorism, such as the PPA, resumption of executions, setting up of military courts have failed to act as deterrents as promised by the government. They must also explain how the attackers managed to get their hands on police uniforms and what the security agencies are doing to address that and to address the glut of weapons.
“It should be clear to everyone today that not only will the country not know peace until the extremists, whichever group of killers they belong to, are taken on and brought to justice, but also that Pakistan and extremism simply cannot co-exist.

NSF protest
As the nation continues to repose its trust in the National Action Plan formed in the aftermath of the Peshawar attack as well as the tall claims of success of the Karachi operation, the barbaric attack on the Ismaili community near Safoora Chowk served as a grim reminder of the fact that the state had yet to consider religious fundamentalism a grave threat.
To condemn the brutal attack which resulted in the deaths of over 45 members of the Ismaili community, the National Students’ Federation held a protest outside the Karachi Press Club on Friday.
The demonstrators chanted slogans against the inefficiency of security agencies to foil terrorist attacks. They also condemned the spree of arrests that law enforcers go on after such attacks.
The protestors held placards demanding equal rights for religious as well as sectarian minorities and demanded a transparent inquiry into all terrorist attacks carried out so far.